Free Republic

A 31 year old Syrian refugee has been arrested in connection with three attacks on the Jewish community in Graz in southern Austria...The first attack took place around 11pm on August 18 when Graz’s synagogue was graffitied with the words “Palestine is free” and “Our language and our land are red lines”... He is also suspected of having vandalised the headquarters of a Graz LGBTQ association and a Catholic church last week. Austria’s interior minister, Karl Nehammer, ascribed an “Islamist motive” to the attacks, calling the suspect a “radical Islamist antisemite” and “homophobe”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there are "many more unpublicized meetings with Arab and Muslim leaders to normalize relations with the state of Israel" following its historic peace agreement with the United Arab Emirates brokered by the United States earlier this month. The comment comes on the heels of a formal decree by the ruler of the UAE on Saturday ending the country's boycott of Israel, which has opened trade and commerce between the two nations. The decree formally eliminates a 1972 law on the UAE's books since just after the country's formation, which mirrored the widely held...

President Trump and his administration facilitated a historic, world-changing peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The “Abraham Accord” is the first peace treaty since the Israel-Jordan treaty signed 26 years ago. This was a stroke of diplomatic genius and I applaud the hard work of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the countless others. I remember Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat’s courageous visit to Israel in 1977 and the resulting peace between the two countries. I was nearly 30 at the time, and even though I had left Egypt many years earlier, I was thrilled at the...

Jerusalem (AFP) — An Israeli-American delegation will fly on the first commercial flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates on Monday after a landmark deal between the countries, officials said Friday. “An official Israeli delegation will go to Abu Dhabi on a direct El Al flight for the first time ever,” a spokesman for Israel’s national carrier said, noting the flight from Tel Aviv was set for Monday. Jared Kushner, top aide and son-in-law to US President Donald Trump, has confirmed he will be on the flight, alongside National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Gen. Abdulhadi Dirah, the spokesman for the army's Sirte-Jufra Joint Operations Unit, said that carrying military ammunition, Ilyushin-type planes conducted five flights to Sirte and Jufra provinces on Saturday. Carrying Bashar al-Assad regime's soldiers, two more flights were made from Syria to Benghazi, the second biggest Libyan city, which is the center of the Haftar's forces, Dirah said. Libya has been torn by civil war since the ouster of late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The government was founded in 2015 under a UN-led agreement, but efforts for a long-term political settlement failed due to a...

“in an apparent accident, while preparing explosives.” Four terrorists from Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Saraya al Quds brigade died in an explosion at their facility in Sajaiya, in eastern Gaza City. They were killed “in an apparent accident, while preparing explosives.” This is what commonly is referred to as a “work accident,” a topic we have covered many times: Four terrorists from Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Saraya al Quds brigade died in an explosion at their facility in Sajaiya, in eastern Gaza City. They were killed “in an apparent accident, while preparing explosives.” This is what commonly is referred to as a...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's Republican National Convention address from Jerusalem "appalling" on Tuesday.  The House Speaker told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that Pompeo's convention speech, which was pre-recorded in Israel during official diplomatic travel, violated State Department rules for employees not to participate in partisan activities

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahar issued a demand Sunday evening that Israel remove the stripes from its flag. "Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag", Zahar said. "The stripes are symbols of occupation – they signify Israel's borders, stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile." The Hamas official's comments followed Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's assessment at the weekly Cabinet meeting that the newly elected terror group was "acting responsibly so far." Zahar also told CNN's Late Edition that the world should not be asking Hamas to recognize Israel, but rather demanding that the Jewish...

Sudan hosted the landmark Arab conference after the 1967 Mideast war where eight Arab countries approved the "three no's": no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations. In 1993, the U.S. designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism in part for its support of a number of anti-Israel militant groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah. But in recent years those hostilities have softened, and both countries have expressed readiness to normalize relations. Sky News Arabia quoted a Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying his government looked forward to a peace agreement "based on equality and Sudanese interests." "There...

Despite being hailed as a "peace deal," the UAE-Israel agreement will more likely prolong ongoing regional wars. It will intensify conflict in those contested zones of the Middle East where the two blocs back rival actors -- primarily Yemen, Libya, and Syria. The insurgent bloc is winning in all three conflicts. The UAE has proved that its main strategy in these conflicts is to control the policymaking of its allies. Emirati leaders have leveraged their relationships in Riyadh and Washington over the last three years to give them or their proxies a free hand to fight in these contested zones....

Folks, Secretary Mike Pompeo gave a talk in Israel alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Fake News and Search Engines are doing everything in their power from having the public hear/see the wonderful praise Netanyahu gave the Trump Administration today. Netanyahu laid all the cards on the table. He crushed Obama's Iran policy and gave a stirring endorsement of President Trump. I could not find his speech on Youtube or any outlet, but here's the transcript of his remarks from the State Department directly.

While Israelis have been celebrating the new potential ties with the United Arab Emirates, the Turkish ruling party is angling across the Mediterranean in Istanbul to become a much larger challenge to the Jewish state in the coming years. Ankara’s current regime under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been increasingly hostile to Israel for the last decade, comparing the country to Nazi Germany and vowing to “liberate” Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Now reports indicate that intelligence and military assessments in Israel see Ankara as a challenge and threat. A recent article in The Times noted that Mossad head Yossi Cohen...

Every summer for several years, a delegation of British MPs and human rights advocates have attended an international gathering in Paris organized by the foremost Iranian pro-democracy opposition group. Sadly, the event had to be cancelled this year, another victim of the coronavirus pandemic. However, that did not stop the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) from providing an international platform for those critical of the theocratic regime in Tehran. Nor did it prevent British supporters of the NCRI contributing to those calls. As with the prior gatherings, the virtual event - dubbed the Free Iran Global Summit -...

The Israel-United Arab Emirates news is actually much bigger than the American press is reporting. President Donald Trump actually does deserve a great deal of credit, and if the deal were reported accurately, he would get that credit. But the issue is larger than even that, and the American media has totally missed the bigger story. First, to review, the United Arab Emirates and Israel have decided to publicly have diplomatic relations in something they are calling the Abraham Accords. This is groundbreaking in and of itself. Though the countries have privately been collaborating for some time, they will make...

/ Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, in a tweet, drew a distinction between Emiratis and their leaders. “The Emirati people are our people. The UAE flag is an Arab flag. Our rejection of normalization does not affect our respect toward our people in the #UAE,” he wrote.

With one stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- nationalist, conservative world leaders much-maligned by our sclerotic global elites as bigoted warmongers -- did more last week to advance durable peace in the Middle East than did generations of Washington's failed "peace process," "two-stater" professional classes. Peace between Israel and the oil-rich Gulf state, the United Arab Emirates, represents a profoundly impactful act of statesmanship and reifies an ascendant, transformative paradigm. In a just world (which we do not presently inhabit), the Norwegian Nobel Committee would be knocking on their doors. In the...

Howie Silbiger discusses American Democrats, most of them anti-President Trump. According to him, the deal between Israel and the UAE is one of the greatest achievements of recent decades - certainly when it comes to the Middle East. So why are there Jews in the US who do not like the deal and criticize it? Howie says these are narrow-minded people who are jealous of the fact that the one who ultimately brings peace to the Middle East is a Republican president, not just a politician but the President Trump they abhore.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MA—A teary-eyed Obama reported he was horrified that Trump has taken the first step toward peace in the Middle East with an agreement between Israel and the UAE. Obama condemned Trump for doing the un-presidential work of actually trying to broker peace in foreign countries rather than just exploding them. "My drone strikes -- all for nothing!" he cried as he read the news on his iPhone. "This is horrible!" The former president addressed the nation in a video message recorded in his seaside mansion, slamming Trump for his willingness to suddenly overturn years of presidential precedent. "Look,...

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday praised the Israel-United Arab Emirates peace deal announced by President Trump, but credited efforts of the Obama-Biden administration for the “historic step. ”Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed released a joint statement Thursday after Israel and the UAE agreed to normalize relations. The statement said that the “diplomatic breakthrough” was at “the request of President Trump,” and that Israel will “suspend declaring sovereignty over areas outlined in the President’s Vision for Peace and focus...

ISTANBUL — Vice President Joe Biden apologized to the United Arab Emirates Sunday for charging that the oil-rich ally had been supporting al Qaida and other jihadi groups in Syria's internal war, his second apology in as many days to a key participant in the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State extremists.